Study of a Tulip (Perregoen Machieu)
Pieter Holsteyn II (Dutch, c.1612–1673)
c. 1645
- Medium
- Point of brush and transparent and opaque watercolors with traces of graphite and gum glazing on antique laid paper
- Classification
- Drawing
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 36 x 27.3 cm (14 3/16 x 10 3/4 in.)
- Culture
- Netherlands
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Drawings
- Credit line
- Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley Collection Gift
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
This image of a tulip was made as part of a tulip book used as a grower’s marketing tool during the so-called tulip mania, a speculative bubble in 17th-century Holland, when ten tulip bulbs could cost more than a stately Amsterdam canal house. The striations on the tulip, which were caused by a virus in the bulb, made it especially valuable. Pieter Holsteyn II was one of many artists in the Netherlands at the time who specialized in botanical illustration.
